This is money coming straight from European consumers who are being played for chumps by their governments, their power suppliers, the E.U., the Chinese, the UNFCCC and the CDM traders.
The fact that European consumers are bending over and taking this treatment rather than imprisoning their so-called leaders is quite amazing and possibly illuminating of the nature of Europe today.
From the Wall Street Journal online:
U.S. Plots New Climate TacticBy the way, now that this enormous wealth transfer is in place:
By JOHN J. FIALKA
The Bush administration plans to push for speeding up -- by a decade -- the global phaseout of chemicals that destroy the ozone layer and contribute to global warming. But it is likely to run into opposition from China, which stands to profit more if current treaties hold.The administration's proposal will be presented at a meeting opening Sept. 15 in Montreal, where representatives from 191 nations that have signed the treaty will discuss toughening the 20-year-old Montreal Protocol. The treaty was designed to reduce the use of chemicals that have created holes in the ozone layer that shields the Earth from the more-damaging parts of solar radiation....
...But China is expected to resist. Under the treaty, developing nations are allowed to continue making HCFCs based on 2015 production levels until 2040. That has been an unintended bonanza for several nations, particularly China, which has built a number of refrigerant factories. A byproduct of China's process is a gas called HFC-23, a chemical that is 11,700 times more powerful in global warming as CO2.This has made the gas very popular under an emissions-trading regime created by a second treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, to curb global warming. Traders estimate China has earned more than $4 billion by installing incinerators to destroy the potent gas.
China's effort is being financed by companies in Europe and Japan, which buy the resulting emission-reduction credits and use them to meet their domestic greenhouse-gas restrictions because they are cheaper than emissions reductions that can be obtained elsewhere.
Kyoto is the only way, Hu tells Howard
THE Prime Minister, John Howard, compromised on his Sydney climate change declaration to accommodate the tough stance of the Chinese President, Hu Jintao, supporting the United Nations and the Kyoto Protocol. The protocol includes binding targets for developed countries to cut emissions.
At the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum leaders' meeting on Saturday, shortly before the release of the declaration, Mr Hu bluntly told Mr Howard that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change "and its Kyoto Protocol" was the legal basis for any international co-operation on climate change.
He also told Mr Howard the framework and the Kyoto Protocol were "the most authoritative, universal and comprehensive international framework" for tackling climate change.
"Developed countries should face their historical responsibility and their high per-capita emissions," Mr Hu insisted, saying the countries should "strictly abide by their emission reduction targets set forth in the Kyoto Protocol"....
The Mafia could learn from the Chinese.
Story from the Sydney Morning Herald
